Japanese brand dumps its cut-priced city car.

STARTING PRICE

$17,397

BASIC SPEC

Suzuki axes Celerio

Suzuki Australia has made the decision to stop importing the Celerio hatch due to slow sales.

The Japanese brand's light hatch has been Australia's cheapest new car with a pricetag of $12,990 driveaway.

However, an influx of fresh rivals such as the updated Mitsubishi Mirage, Holden Spark and the Kia Picanto have eaten into the Celerio's sales in 2017, which have dropped by 74 per cent to a total of 141.

The segment as a whole is down 25 per cent for the year as buyers gravitate towards small SUVs

“Over the last few months we have been selling existing Celerio stock at a lower rate than planned, albeit still in line with the Micro segment, and consequently do not plan to import any further units this year.” Said Suzuki Australia Director of Automobiles, Andrew Moore.

“It is a situation that we will be keeping a close eye on, and should we see a notable increase in segment demand we can always look to reorder the model back again,” said Moore.

Suzuki has recently launched its new Swift city car that competes with the likes of the Mazda2 and Kia Rio in the far more robust light car segment.

The Celerio will still be on sale in Queensland, as that state has a different importer.